Tiny Toon Adventures
Tiny Toon Adventures is a cartoon from 1990-1995 featuring preteen equivalents of the classic Looney Tunes characters. It was made during the popularity of junior versions of cartoon characters. It originally debuted on Fox Kids and was shown on Nick in reruns. It was created by Amblin Entertainment, best known for creating the popular film ET. Characters * Buster Bunny- the leader of the Toons and an equivalent of Bugs Bunny. He is blue. * Barbara Ann "Babs" Bunny (no relation to Buster)- A pink, female rabbit and Buster's implied girlfriend. She hates her full name. She is fourteen. * Plucky Duck- equivalent of Daffy Duck. He is always scheming something. There is a sketch featuring his "potty years" (his toddlerhood), where he is even younger and has all the mischievous habits of toddlers. He is a green mallard. He got his own, albeit shortlived, spinoff series. He is also very egotistical. * Dizzy Devil- a purple equivalent of the Tazmanian Devil. He wears a beanie and his pupils are different colors. * Calamity Coyote- equivalent of Wile E. Coyote. As his name implies, he is always getting injured. He is a greyish blue. * Little Beeper- equivalent of the Roadrunner. He is multiple shades of red. * Shirley the Loon- a loon who speaks like a Valley Girl. Her species is a play on the fact that they all originate from the Looney Tunes series of cartoons. She is very much into Zen and New Age. * Fifi La Flume- a purple skunk and the equivalent of Pepe Le Pew. * Furrball- the equivalent of Sylvester. He is blue and features a bandage around his tail. As the theme song indicates, he is unlucky. * Li'l Sneezer- The equivalent of Speedy Gonzales. He has the problem of sneezing so hard it causes hurricane force winds. He is cute sounding rather than stereotypical Mexican. * Sweetie Bird- The equivalent of Tweety. She is a pink canary, but with a rather masculine and sometimes extremely loud voice. * Gogo Dodo- Lives in the nonsensical Wackyland. He is based on the Last Dodo from a Porky Pig cartoon. Nothing about him makes sense. * Concord Condor- A purple condor with a Beatle cut. He is based on Beaky Buzzard. * Byron Basset- A basset hound whose eyes are covered by his wrinkles. He is based on Willoughby the Dog. * Elmyra Duff- a girl whose only goal is to find animals and "love them and hug them and squeeze them all to pieces". She never realizes the immense pain she causes them. She is the equivalent of Elmer Fudd, and has a speech impediment similar to Elmer. Her name is also similar. It was also revealed that her hair is actually a wig and in reality she is bald like Elmer. She wears a bow with a skull in the middle. She had a crossover with Pinky and the Brain. * Montana "Monty" Max- the equivalent of Yosemite Sam, although a spoiled brat millionaire rather than a wiley prospector type. He is voiced by Danny Cooksey, who also played Budnick in Salute Your Shorts. Controversy * The character Fowlmouth, an equivalent of Foghorn Leghorn, swears a lot. These swears are censored, however. One episode revolved around getting him to break his habit. They succeed, only to have Buster swear (also censored). * The episode Elephant Issues was never aired due to Fox censors rejecting the "One Beer" segment. It is available on the "Tiny Toon Adventures Vol. 3: Crazy Crew Rescues" DVD set, however. * The movie features the characters performing the popular children's act of holding your breath while traveling through a tunnel *In the movie, Plucky goes on a road trip with Hamton. On the way, Hamton's parents sing "99 Bottles of Nonalcoholic Beverage on the Wall", a reference to "99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall". When Plucky brings up the correct title, Mrs. Pig says they don't drink in their family. *The episode Wheel O Comedy has Babs suggest they start with a chant, prompting Buster start the "Girl from Nantucket" poem, with Babs stopping him after the first line. *The episode Toons from the Crypt was never aired due to Fox censors rejecting the Night of the Living Pets segment. It is available on the "Tiny Toon Adventures Vol. 4: Looney Links" DVD set, however. *In the film, Plucky and Hamton go on a car trip. While playing the overenthusiastic game "There's a car!", which results in Plucky being landed upon by Hamton and his parents again and again, Plucky says "Shoot me". Plucky's line was censored in later airings. *In one episode, the characters are playing the Name Game. When they start Plucky's turn, they realize the inappropriate lyric that might occur and stop singing *The first episode references Roger Rabbit, Green Acres, and The Shining *One episode references the horror movie Carrie Video Games Tiny Toons video games have been released to multiple consoles over the years, most notably the NES. Availability * The show is available on DVD * The show is available on iTunes Film A direct-to-video movie titled How I Spent My Summer Vacation was released in 1992. Trivia Pop Culture * One episode was based on the legendary film Citizen Kane, with Montana Max acting as Charles Foster Kane. Instead of saying "Rosebud", he is heard saying "Acme" (which turns into a running gag of them trying to find out what it means, despite everything being of that brand). It is later revealed he said "acne", upset at getting a case of pimples. * In one episode, Hampton tries to act hip by dancing disco with Fifi and Shirley repeating "disco inferno", only to have Babs tell him that disco is dead. Disco Inferno is a hit song by The Trammps. * The episode Tiny Toon Music Television (named for the TV channel) features Babs singing (actually lip-synched) to the Aretha Franklin hit Respect. It also features Plucky in music videos for Particle Man (with Hamton lip synching) and Istanbul by college rock band They Might Be Giants and Monty in a music video for Barrett Strong's hit Money. The final video references The Sorcerer's Apprentice segment from Disney's Fantasia. * One episode has the Toons go to a movie. The sound system promo is extremely loud and is branded "THUD: A division of Mucasfilm Ltd". This is a parody of Luasfilm THX. Thud's promo ends with "The audience is now deaf", a parody of THX's "The audience is listening". * One episode has Plucky abducted by aliens, mistaking him as the strongest Earthling. He is assigned to fight Duck Vader, a parody of Darth Vader. The episode also has Buster, Babs, and Hamton searching a warehouse. One crate in the warehouse says "Rose Bud", a reference to the iconic sled Rosebud from the classic film Citizen Kane. In order to rescue Plucky, they use the rocket from the classic Looney Tunes cartoon "Duck Dodgers of the 24th 1/2 Century". Babs has her ears done like Princess Leia's hair. Everyone wears Star Wars style outfits. Duck Vader's ship resembles a Star Destroyer, only also resembling swiss cheese. Duck Vader has his own Stormtroopers, who get their name from making cheezy special effects. Plucky tells the aliens "Let the force be your umbrella", a play on "May the Force be with you". In the parking lot of Vader's ship, a small Death Star can be seen. Hamton in one scene is shown reading the magazine Pork's Illustrated: Swimsuit Issue, a parody of Sports Illustrated. The aliens' pet bull is named Chewcudda, after Chewbacca and the fact that bulls chew their cuds. ** The aliens who abducted Plucky warn him to never show their pet bull anything red after Plucky is trampled by the bull for sticking his tongue at it. Scientists have since determined that bulls are color blind and react more to motion than color. *The episode Wheel O Comedy references the shower scene from the horror film Psycho. ''The episode has Plucky, Monty, and Babs go on a game show called "Win, Lose, or Kerplowie", a reference to "Win, Lose, or Draw". The contestants are told to "come on down", referencing ''The Price is Right. The host of the game show is Wink Winkleman, a reference to David Letterman, former host of The Price is Right. When Plucky is kerplowied, he asks for a Band-Aid, a genericized trademark for a bandage. Babs is asked what she does, and promptly does an imitation of Katherine Hepburn. After discovering Monty is rigging the show so he can win, Buster takes over as host while Babs becomes Vanna Pink, a reference to Vanna White from Wheel of Fortune. ''One of the puzzles Monty is given resembles something from Wheel. The fact that they get hurt if they lose references Looney Tunes cartoon ''The Ducksters, in which Daffy Duck hosts a game show called Truth or Aaaahhh!!!, on which you must answer the question correctly and in time or else you will be severely hurt. *One episode has Shirley channel the genius of Einstein into Plucky's brain so he can pass his midterm. This results in a sequence which starts with music resembling Night on Bald Mountain from Disney's Fantasia followed by a sequence resembling Pink Elephants on Parade from Dumbo. Furrball is introduced by Sylvester to a museum featuring displays of past cartoon cats including references to Garfield, Felix, and Tom and Jerry. This episode has "Enough television. Now go read a book." in the end credits. *One episode references the bizarre serial Twin Peaks *One of Plucky's alter-egos is the Toxic Revenger, a parody of the Toxic Avenger *In one episode, Plucky and Buster end up in a dark room, with only their eyes showing. They comment on it being an animation effect. Buster has Buster has Plucky remove his eyes while he removes one of his and they entertain themselves by essentially playing Pong. Later on they end up playing Pac Man. *One episode was based on the iconic classic film Field of Dreams *In one episode Max wanted Evian instead of tap water. Evian is a brand of Swiss mineral water that is often depicted as luxurious. *In one episode a characters is misled into getting to see Madonna, only to learn it was actually Fudonna (Elmer Fudd dressed as Madonna) Remarks * One episode makes reference to the Fox network. Younger generations who first saw this on Nickelodeon or DVD might find this confusing. * A recurring theme for cartoons of its age was the fight against censorship in kids shows, evidenced in the theme song. In the debut episode, Buster asks for some clothes to please the censors. He is given a shirt, but strangely no pants. Incidentally, the show could've gotten away with the characters having no clothes as they are simply anthropomorphic animals (even Bugs Bunny, on whom Buster was based, wore nothing more than gloves and is depicted as such in this show). * In the episode where Monty rigs the game show, the question "Who was the first President?" is changed to "Who was the first President of Namibia?" so Babs' response of "George Washington" is changed from correct to incorrect. Buster does some research and discovers that Namibia doesn't even have a president, leading him to believe the show is rigged. Namibia actually had a president at the time, Sam Nujoma. He was elected in 1990 and ruled until 2005. He was even their first president. * In the summer vacation episode, Babs says she is going to get a golden tan despite having pink fur. Other * The episode "Video Game Blues" is based around works from Tchaikovsky's famous ballet The Nutcracker. * One episode was based around the legendary Edgar Allan Poe poem The Raven, with Sweetie acting as the raven. * One episode features Buster using rap-based dialogue to defeat Monty and his use of metal-based dialogue. This may be a reference to how metal was going out of fashion at the time while rap was the latest craze. * At the end of the first episode, Buster and Babs (having basically created the show) ask for a "created by" credit from the artist. He denies this, only to have Buster and Babs angrily jump all over him. At the end of the credit sequence, they do get their credit. *In the first episode, Bugs suggests that the artist try creating a rabbit for his new cartoon character. His first attempt is an extremely-adorable rabbit whose voice would later be used for Sneezer. This rabbit is rejected. *The chant used in the Wheel O Comedy episode resembles the one used for the "Wheel O Morality" in Animaniacs. *A proper junior adaptation of Looney Tunes debuted in 2001, titled Baby Looney Tunes. It ran until 2006. It included a baby version of Lola Bunny, who debuted in the film Space Jam. Unlike Tiny Toons, the show is more similar to Muppet Babies. Category:Cartoons